Multi-media artist brings exhibit to Lake Tahoe Community College

Multimedia artist Cynthia Hooper, whose videos and paintings capture various landscapes found in California and Mexico, is bringing her artistic talents to Lake Tahoe Community College’s Haldan Gallery this winter. Research & Desire: Recent Videos and Paintings by Cynthia Hooper opens Thursday, Jan. 14, with an Artist’s Reception from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. in the Haldan Gallery. Hooper will give a short talk about her work at 5:30 p.m. Light refreshments will be served, and all are welcome to attend this free event. The exhibit remains open until March 18.

Hooper’s videos, paintings, and essays often interpret water, energy, and urban and agricultural landscapes in the United States and Mexico. She documents these sites’ compelling perceptual and metaphorical characteristics, and investigates their many political and environmental contingencies. Her work proposes a nuanced, reflective, and often sympathetic reception for the places she studies, and also advocates for the efforts of regional laborers, activists, and researchers who refashion their complex geography.

The exhibit features 10 documentary videos about dams and water use in California and Mexico, dramatic industrial landscapes in Baja, California, and the timber and fishing industries in Humboldt Bay. Also featured are a suite of videos, paintings, and essays about the isolated and fragmented (yet remarkably resilient) wetlands of the once vast Colorado River Delta in Mexico. This exhibition in its entirety represents nearly 10 years of creative work that examines the geographical region between Southern Oregon and Baja California Sur.

Hooper has exhibited her work at the Center for Land Use Interpretation in Los Angeles, the Museum of Modern Art in Mexico City, the Centro Cultural Tijuana, and MASS MoCA, among many other national and international venues. She was awarded residencies at the Headlands Center for the Arts and the Djerassi Resident Artists Program, as well as grants from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts and the Gunk Foundation. She lives in Northern California and is a Professor of Art at the College of the Redwoods in Eureka.